


Silence so Loud

by theskywasblue



Category: Bleach
Genre: Comedy, F/M, First Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-20
Updated: 2010-05-20
Packaged: 2017-10-09 14:48:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/88570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskywasblue/pseuds/theskywasblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ichigo learns that silence is not always golden</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silence so Loud

"_God_! Can't you just shut the hell up for once?"

Ichigo knew he had made a tactical error the minute that the words escaped his lips, because Rukia actually _did_ shut up – though not in a shocked way, or even in a complacent way. She shut her mouth so fast and hard that her teeth clacked together, narrowing her blue eyes into tiny slits of fury. Then she spun on her heel and stormed out of the room without another word.

_Shit…oh shit, oh damn, oh fuck – I'm fucked._

He knew that look. That was the 'you are going to regret this very, very soon so you'd better sleep with one eye open' look.

He hated that look.

He slumped miserably onto his desk chair, cradled his head in his hands, and groaned.

***

The Zanpakutou met with a deafening clang, sparks flying, their owners flying backwards with the force of the blows, skidding hard along the sandy ground, kicking up great clouds of dust.

"Dammit Kurosaki! This is supposed to be a sparring match, not a death match! What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Shut up you pansy!" Ichigo levelled his Zangetsu at the his opponent, only to have his arm turn nearly to jelly at the elbow joint and his knees collapse under him. He'd been pushing too hard, he realized – too late as usual – his energy was utterly used up; not that he was about to admit it. "If you're not going all-out, then how are you supposed to get stronger?"

"Stronger my ass," Renji replied snidely, dropping into a loose crouch, leaving Zabimaru impaled in the dirt, as he tried to work the pain out of his calves with one hand, "You're so exhausted I could knock you over with a cough. You've got bags under your eyes too – are the hollows being too much trouble for you?" This last part he asked with a snivelling, whiny voice and a patronizing grin.

"Son of a bitch…I'll…" Ichigo tried to get his legs back under him, but it just wasn't happening. He hadn't slept properly in the five days since he had fought with Rukia, waiting anxiously for something wicked and painful to befall him. So far, nothing had happened, but she still wasn't talking to him. Not so much as one word.

Defeated, he collapsed backwards into the sand.

"Rukia's not talking to me," he admitted finally.

He opened his eyes when he sensed a shadow fall over him. Renji was staring down at him with a look of perplexed horror.

"What the hell did you do?" he demanded, brandishing Zabimaru inches from Ichigo's exposed throat.

"I didn't do anything!" Ichigo swatted the Zanpakutou away irritably, kicking out at Renji with his foot and getting nothing but air, "She was the one who – it's none of your damn business anyway! I don't even know why I told you!"

Renji snorted derisively, but put the Zanpakutou away, "You're totally fucked, you know that, right? Once she got mad at me and didn't so much as sneeze in my presence for three months."

Ichigo eyed the red-headed Shinigami incredulously. He wanted to say that no one in the world, living or dead, had that kind of self control. But this was Kuchiki Rukia they were talking about, and her capacity for vengeance bordered on legendary.

"So, how did you get her to give up on it?"

Renji snorted, as if the answer was obvious, "Annoyed the hell out of her until she was so pissed off she couldn't help but yell at me, of course."

Ichigo rolled that idea around in the back of his mind, considering.

Truthfully, he was willing to try just about anything to hear Rukia speak.

***

Badump-thump.

Badump-thump.

Badump-thump.

Ichigo watched Rukia – serenely reading one of her favourite sappy romance novels – out of the corner of his eye as he bounced the tennis ball repeatedly off the wall, striking the frame of the closet time after time, mere inches from her head.

She didn't so much as flinch. The 'annoy Rukia into breaking her silence' tactic was not working, and he was running out of ideas.

He had sung in the shower that morning – loudly and completely out of tune – until his father broke down the door and threatened to throw him naked into the street. He'd shot spit-balls at the back of her neck in class until the teacher had caught him and given him detention. He'd thrown her juice box off the roof – unfortunately hitting the Vice-Principal on the terrace below and earning himself a second hour of detention. He had even kicked stones at the back of her legs all the way home until a badly-aimed stone had hit a neighbourhood dog, which had ended up chasing him around the block for nearly an hour and nearly took a chunk out of his ass with some very nasty teeth.

"Ichigo goddammit!" Karin bellowed from the room across the hall, "Some of us are trying to _study_! If you don't shut the hell up right now I'm going to come in there and make sure you never father any annoying little boys!"

He shoved the tennis ball under his pillow and collapsed back onto the bed, biting back a sigh. He had used up all the best and most juvenile tactics he could think of to make Rukia mad, and none of them had worked.

There was only one thing left for him to do – but he really, _really_ didn't want to have to sink that low.

Finally, he decided he had no choice. But he sure as hell wasn't going to look at her while he did it.

"Fine!" he threw up his hands in disgust, glaring a hole in the ceiling, "You win; you are the undisputed queen of driving me crazy with silence. I'm sorry alright? Are you happy now?"

He waited for it, muscles nearly trembling with the anticipation of the sound of her voice; but all he heard was a dull thud as the closet door was slammed closed along its track.

"Hey!" he bolted upright, hurling the alarm clock from his beside table at the door, "I'm apologizing here! Doesn't that count for anything?!"

He stormed to the door, overcome with outrage. He had swallowed his damn pride and _apologized_ – for something that hadn't been his fault in the first place no less – and still she didn't have the decency to say so much as a word? He wasn't going to stand for it, not in his own house, and certainly not in his own bedroom, from an arrogant, irritating girl who lived in his goddamn _closet_.

He gripped the door and pulled with all his strength, but it refused to budge.

"Rukia!" he pounded on the door with his fists, shaking the frame, "open the door dammit! RUKIA!!"

The door slid open so quickly that Ichigo had to stop his fist in mid-air for fear of accidentally hitting her. She glared at him with fire in her blue eyes, but he wasn't about to back off. He had absolutely reached his limit.

"Say something," he commanded.

Her glare intensified. He could practically feel blisters forming on his skin.

"Say something," he reached out and gripped her shoulders firmly, holding her in place, "or I'll make you say something."

The glint in her eyes became a challenge. She didn't think that he would be able to do it – but he was going to prove her wrong.

He leaned in swiftly and kissed her, not anything graceful or pretty like in sappy movies she always made him watch with her; in fact, compared to those it was downright sloppy; but his lips pretty much met hers, although if any sparks flew they were only from Rukia's eyes.

He had a fleeting moment of triumph when she made a small, startled noise in the back of her throat, hardly more than a squeak, and when he pulled back, he recognized the look in her eyes. She was going to cast some nasty, painful, possibly deadly kidou on him, but it was all going to be worth it, because she would have to speak to do it.

And he had kissed her.

If he hadn't been facing certain death, he might have laughed.

-End-


End file.
